Cowboys tackle Tyron Smith hit the jackpot when the Cowboys made him a first round pick in the 2011 draft, leading to a lucrative contract and his play has done nothing to suggest that there won’t be even bigger ones in the years to come.
According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, s0me members of his family have set their sights on getting some of that money. Dallas police responded to a 911 call from Smith’s home on Tuesday where, per a police report, two of Smith’s siblings had shown up to “harass and torment” him “in the pursuit of collecting financial gain.” This is the latest in a string of incidents involving members of Smith’s family, which led Smith to take out a protective order against his mother and stepfather that forbids them from having any contact with him.
“Lesser means were tried and they weren’t successful,” Smith’s attorney John Schorsch said. “You can use your own imagination as to what it took for a guy that big and that imposing to be that worried.”
According to the report, Smith gave a “substantial” amount of money to his family after signing his four-year, $12.5 million contract last year, but that family members have kept coming back for more. Smith wouldn’t comment and attempts to reach his mother were unsuccessful. The Cowboys also did not comment, but they are aware of the issues and had to remove a member of Smith’s family from a training camp practice in Oxnard, California, a couple of hours from where Smith’s family lives, this summer.
The newspaper quotes people close to Smith as saying that the 21-year-old is “emotionally torn up” by what’s gone on with his family, which certainly makes sense.